Operation Womble. The batrep.

One of the things I’ll say about FFOL is that a fair amount of narrative happens in every game turn and when you try to capture it all with photos it’s one hell of a long post…so apologies in advance.

Operation Womble  6th August 1937

While Sgt Bradley and his squad descended the slime coated ladder into the sewers, the Spanish volunteers set up their Hotchkiss machine gun…

And courtesy of ChatGPT’s graphics option…they opened fire to draw the defenders out. I felt compelled to shout “DAKKA DAKKA” at this point. Fortunately nobody was about.

Once in the sewers Bradley’s team began to accumulate 1D6 worth of shock per turn, the first roll producing enough for all of them to suffer from it. Shock reduces movement and fire accuracy incrementally and can be hard to shake off unless the men are allowed to rest (ie do nothing). 

To cap things off the BUF lads were to suffer from a run of really poor activation cards - none of which gave bonus buffs to performance.

Hearing the commotion from the Hotchkiss the BLDV troops in the canteen grabbed the Lewis gun and raced towards the sound of gunfire…

Which was both understandable and also ruddy stupid. The BUF Hotchkiss team let rip as soon as they came into view. Alf Tuttle the Lewis gun loader was hit and went down while Henry Boothe manning the gun behind him, froze in shock.

Fortunately for the Brompton Lewis boys, Frank Upton the squad medic had followed them from the canteen. Seeing it was only a scratch Frank dragged the blubbering Tuttle to his feet…just in time for the BUF to fire at them again. The D10 roll of ten shown here put shock on Tuttle and caused a one time (per side) random event.

A single random shell from the fighting way off board to the south (apologies for it not being painted yet) hits the Birmingham Road but causes no casualties…

…because Sid Cooper and Michael O’Rorke had already abandoned the guard post adjacent to where the explosion occurred in order to catch the Hotchkiss team in the flank.

Michael “Pedro” O’Rorke had not long returned from Spain where he’d been fighting the self same fascists in their own country. 

Now there’s never a good time to run out of ammo, but sometimes you can remedy the situation…

…and sometimes you can’t. Emptying his own magazine Sid puts the mg gunner out of the fight and the loader down with a nasty wound.

Perhaps out of breath from his sprint up the road, O’Rorke engages in a very weak attempt at melee with the remaining Hotchkiss team member. The combat goes on for two turns, in which there is much waving of handbags. Both protagonists are more in danger of catching a cold from the flapping of limp wrists than  falling beneath a welter of furious blows. 

No need for Queensbury rules with this pair. They spent two turns seemingly waving handkerchiefs at each other. 

Meanwhile back in the sewers, we’d reached turn four, and the BUF lads rolled to discover which of the over large storm drains they were now under. In a sudden change of luck they came up in one of the best spots under manhole number 3, though four turns wading through Brompton’s effluent had left them more like brown shirts than black shirts, lol. 

It was a good spot because it was central to the majority of the buildings and the bulk of the defenders were now gathered in the carpet factory out of the way. 

Sergeant “wild bill” Haskins gives the lmg team who’ve “still got the wind up” a ruddy good talking to. 

And then my kidneys, no doubt driven mad by the excitement decided to kill me. 

Again.

The annoying thing is I spent several hundred euros the year before last, gravelling the drive, unaware that I had enough rocks in my kiddly diddly’s to have done the job for nowt. ((Sigh)).

Upon my somewhat shaky return from hospital 48hrs later…

The BUF’s Sergeant Bradley was first out of the manhole but hadn’t gone more than a dozen paces when a shot from Bob Catchpole sent him flying across the gravel. 

Very much the worse for wear some of the other BUF boys began emerging into the daylight in their leaders wake, splitting up and staggering towards cover.

Only the lad on the left had managed to shake off his shock, the others had three apiece reducing their movement to a 2 inch crawl towards safety.

Back down on the Birmingham Road Corporal Gonzalez puts the still ineffectual O’Rorke “out of the fight”. This was bad news because the BLDV force have been told that they can’t risk too many casualties in this action. If they lose two of their number they must withdraw and concede.

Enjoy your moment of triumph fella cos here comes Sid - and he’s loaded for bear!

“Gotcha now yer bugger! Err,” click, click, click… “ooh ‘eck hold on a mo mate it’s ruddy jammed!”

Proving that its hard to run with a 3ft length of IZAL stuck to your shoe this poor chap (top) ends up with five shock markers (some from coming under fire) that reduces him to a blubbering immovable wreck. 

Bob Catchpole, ignoring any advice to avoid an adverse melee result that might concede the game wades in with his size 10 hobnails as the other BUF troops scatter into the surrounding buildings. 

On his next turn Bob hoofs the bloke in the nads a second time…unsurprisingly wounding him still further. 

Gonzalez - who’d been unwilling to “wait a mo” as requested had little option other than to run at Sid and engage in melee while he had the chance. Sid rolled as badly as he could and was immediately put out of the fight. With two lads now down the Brompton boys were forced to:concede and the game ended.

That Gonzalez chappie is one mean sone of a gun. Fortunately he left O’Rorke and Sid by the road side and hot footed it off to join his mates - so we’ll see if they get to recover before the campaign is over. 

The BUF ended up in control to the railway sheds and the factory opposite the phone box, while the Brompton lads regrouped in the carpet factory.  Brompton had three points for the first campaign game win but get nothing out of this one. The BUF now have seven points five for this high priority win and two for the two buildings they occupy. Each side is able to spend three points from their campaign total next time to bring a vehicle onto the table - if they deem this a prudent use of precious points. 

The next game will kick off from these positions - but I suspect that’ll be in early March.

To the victor, the spoils. 

In other gaming news I was circling the Perry’s AWI section recently like a seagull spotting a five year old with a big bag of fish ‘n’ chips when I somehow stumbled across this instead at Gripping Beast…

 

I suspect this might be the answer to my moribund 100YW project so the AWI in 28mm (hat tip to Keith for the inspiration) will probably be on the back burner for a little bit longer.

Right I’m offski…Toodleooh mes amis.